Comparisons Between Cancer-Related and Noncancer-Related Lymphedema: An Overview of New Patients Referred to a Specialized Hospital-Based Center in Canada
Bibliographic record
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Lymphedema is an irreversible inflammatory condition caused by accumulated lymph fluid and is associated with chronic swelling and increased risk of cellulitis. Our objectives were to: (1) describe the patient population referred to a Canadian lymphedema center and (2) compare lymphedema characteristics between patients with cancer and patients with noncancer diagnoses. METHODS AND RESULTS: A retrospective cohort study was conducted of new patients referred for suspected lymphedema to a hospital-based center over a 2-year period. The mean age of the patients (n = 429) was 61.4 years; 85% were female and 81% had a history of cancer. Lymphedema characteristics were primary (7%) versus secondary (92%); upper body (51%) versus lower body (45%); unilateral (74%) versus bilateral (25%); and history of cellulitis (22%). Patients with noncancer diagnoses (n = 82) were more likely than patients with cancer diagnoses (n = 347) to have a history of cellulitis (44% vs. 17%), to have bilateral (61% vs. 16%) and lower limb (89% vs. 37%) lymphedema, and to experience a long delay between symptom onset and referral (14.0 vs. 3.5 years) (p < 0.001). CONCLUSION: Most patients referred to our lymphedema center were female with a history of cancer. However, patients with noncancer diagnoses were more likely to have bilateral lower body lymphedema with an important history of cellulitis; this subgroup is at great risk of missed and delayed diagnoses in the medical setting and of experiencing long-term issues with mobility, recurrent hospitalizations, and poor quality of life.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.003 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".